Miss Baldwin toyed with her spoon.
“I thought that this—going gold-hunting—was so much more alive.”
“Good!” he said earnestly. “That is why I voted for it, too. To be alive while we are living—that is more important than to unearth old skeletons. Isn’t that your idea, Miss Baldwin?”
“Yes,” she said with a strange smile.
“And to be alive means to live in the open, free and untrapped.”
She looked up at him, and by her expression I knew that she saw only his eyes.
“You don’t look as if you would be contented indoors, captain,” she said with a little laugh.
“Are you?” he said, and looked straight at her.
She smiled in puzzled fashion without replying.
“No, you are not,” he answered for her. “For you are very, very much alive, and so must naturally have longings for the free life, which means life outdoors. Am I not right?”